“How much talking do y’all need to do until you figure it out?”
I level her with a fierce glare. “We had to get to know each other, right? That was the whole fucking point of moving in together.”
“And?” Sarah asks.
“And what?”
“Do you know each other?” She throws her arms up, apparently exasperated.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?” I snap, crossing my arms in front of my chest tightly.
“Is he a good guy?”
“Yes, obviously.”
“And?”
“Oh my god, what now?”
“Do you feel safe with him?”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“So what?” I yell.
“Are you in love with him?”
“Yes!”
Wait, what?
“No!” I say, panic-stricken. “No, no, no—” But it’s too late. Sarah is up from her seat, slapping the desk with both palms like a drum.
“Vindication!” she shouts, her hands like claws pointed at the ceiling.
“Shut up,” I whisper, rubbing my forehead. “Please,” I beg pathetically. “Don’t.”
“I was right,” she says, sitting back down. “Winnifred McNulty is in love.”
“Sarah, I love him, but I’m not in love with him.”
“Bullshit,” she spits, shaking her head.
“I mean it,” I say, my voice involuntarily pitching higher. “I mean it,” I repeat, steadier.
Sarah narrows her eyes on me, swiping her tongue across her teeth under closed lips. “Okay, then. Let’s play worst-case scenario.”
“Why?” I sigh out.
“Humour me,” she says, pushing the wheeled desk chair around the room until she’s directly across from me, our knees almost touching. She’s ridiculous but entertaining. I’ll give her that. “Worst-case scenario—a year from now. Baby is happy and healthy. Just think about you. Tell me; no hesitation.”
“Um…” I immediately hesitate.
“No!” She flicks the side of my head, and I swat her away. “Just speak!”
Fuck.
“This is stupid,” I say, tightening my arms across my chest.
“You’re being a child. Grow up and face your feelings. You love Bo. You’re in love with Bo. Admit it.”
“No!”
“Why?” she yells.
“I was hurt, Sarah. I was hurt so badly, and you don’t even know the half of it.” The moment the words leave me, all the breath in my lungs goes with them.
“So tell me, Win. Fucking tell me so we can work through it. I’ve been asking for years what happened. Or tell someone. Anyone. A professional, preferably. Or, Bo, maybe—since he should know.”
“He made me feel small” is all I manage to say, tears threatening to pour. “Jack made me feel small and stupid and incapable, and I never want to feel that way again. I gave him my self-esteem on a goddamn silver platter, and like a fucking idiot, I was surprised when he took it and ate me whole.”
“Jack is a fuckwad who will burn every bridge he ever builds. You are not any of those things, Win.”
“Yeah, I know that now. It took me all these years since Jack to remember who I am and what I’m not. I don’t… I don’t want to forget again.”
“You won’t.”
“I might! Because I keep forgetting a lot of things, apparently! Like, for example, the fact that Bo is most likely still in love with your sister-in-law. That night we spent together meant something to us both, but that’s just it. It was a night. He was with Cora for years. And even though she broke his heart and left him during the worst possible time of his life, he still cares for her. Still. That loyalty. That… type of connection… I can’t expect him to feel more for me after just a few months of being thrust into this situation together. I can’t live with the thought that he might wish I was her. That I was just the available option.”
Sarah sighs, her eyes held on me as her chest falls. “Win…”
“No, it’s fine. I’ve got it handled.”
“Win… you’ve got to talk to him.”
“I can’t,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “I can’t do it again. I can’t talk to him. I can’t put my heart on another platter and expect a different result.”
“Just, tell me this. What is your worst-case scenario?” she asks, her eyes heavy and lips pouted in concentration. “A year from now, you wake up and…” she adds, waving me on.
That’s the scary thing. At first, I wanted to answer that it was letting Bo in, just to be proven right. A type of right I’d never want to be. That he’d be careless with my heart and my feelings, and that a year from now, I’d wake up and realise I’d done it again—fallen for the wrong type of man. But that’s no longer it.
The worst-case scenario is not having found out what being with Bo could be like.
“Seeing Bo in love with someone else. That he’ll have a beautiful girlfriend who loves my kid too, and they’ll take them for walks on the beach, and dance in his dining room, and—and I’ll be somewhere else. Alone. Missing him. Missing what could have been. Realising that he was ready to move on… and I wasn’t his first choice.”
“Do you really think Bo would let it play out that way if he knew? Because, from where I’m standing, that man looks at you like you hung the moon. More than that. The sun too. I’ve never seen anyone look at another person like that.”
“I don’t think he’d intend to hurt me,” I whisper, mostly to myself. “But we don’t know if he feels the same. I don’t know if it’s just… attraction.”
“It’s not lust in his eyes, Win. It’s so much more than that.”
“What if it’s just hormones? What if it’s just some primal, lizard part of my brain telling me to stay close to the man I procreated with? What if I pop this baby out, and suddenly, he’s some intolerable toad?”
“Do you seriously think that, Win? That women are just skin suits operated by poor instinct and hormones?” She rolls her eyes, sitting straighter—in a man’s wide-spread posture. “Women are too emotional,” Sarah says in a deeper voice. “They can’t be in charge when their bodies make them go crazy once a month.”
“No,” I say pointedly, glaring at her.
“And why are we acting like his emotions should dictate yours? I’m asking what you feel. Not him.”
“Right. Yeah,” I respond weakly.
“So say it. Say it out loud. Be honest with yourself and me.”
I take a deep breath in, straightening my shoulders. Still, my voice comes out soft and timid. “I love Bo.”
“Even if he’s in love with someone else?”
“Yes,” I say, pathetic as it may be.
“Even if he’s not ready to love you back the same?”
I nod, staring up at the ceiling as I place my hands on my neck. “But isn’t that beyond stupid?”
“Love is stupid, Win,” she says softly. “So what are you going to do about it?”